The telephone industry is currently composed of several major telephone service competitors each offering their own pricing plans and structures. The price charged to a paying party for a toll telephone call may depend on a variety of factors, including the time of the day, the day of the week, the called party's service provider in relation to the caller, where the caller is calling from, how frequently the called party is called, how the call is being paid for, any operator assistance, or any other possible pricing plan or scheme of the telephone service provider.
In the prior art, the payee of a telephone conversation had no means of requesting and receiving billing information for determining optimal call periods prior to establishing a toll telephone call connection using an automated telephone system. Specifically, a user of a telephone service currently does not have the ability with the telephone service to determine before completing a toll telephone call when would be the optimal time to place the call. The need for this type of service has become more important with the increase of telephone service competitors and individual pricing plans and schemes. The advantages of being able to determine in advance of completing a toll telephone call (with the same call) the optimal calling period include being able to better plan and budget necessary toll calls and being able to determine if a spending limit has been approached or exceeded at an appropriate time. Such a service would have important ramifications for both the personal and business markets.
There is thus an unmet need in the art for an automated telephone system to retrieve and generate billing information in response to a request by a telephone system user for determining optimal call periods in accordance with caller and callee parameters prior to establishing a toll telephone call connection.